"Let no freedom be allowed to novelty, because it is not fitting that any addition should be made to antiquity. Let not the clear faith and belief of our forefathers be fouled by any muddy admixture."
-- Pope Sixtus III

More than 30 girls may have been victims in what San Juan County Sheriff Mike Lacy is calling a child pornography case.

Lacy said his office has completed its probe and referred its findings to the Utah Attorney General's Office for possible criminal charges.

As many as eight boys are believed to be involved, though four appear to have been the biggest culprits, Lacy said.

Some of those teenagers have turned 18 and could face charges as adults.

"Some of this has been going on for two or three years," Lacy said. "By the time we got the report, it just kind of snowballed."

In some instances, boys drove girls into the mountains near Monticello. The boys told the girls that if they wanted a ride down, they needed to bare themselves for the camera, authorities said.

Photographs were taken with cell phones and exchanged through cell communication and by computer, Lacy said.

The Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, based in the Attorney General's Office, participated in the investigation. John Soltis, the attorney general's office prosecutor assigned to the case, said he is reviewing the evidence but declined furthercomment.

San Juan School District Superintendent Doug Wright said investigators came to Monticello High School at the start of the school year to interview students. The district told the detectives that administrators must be present in the interviews so the investigators elected to speak to students off campus, Wright said.

Wright said the district has no knowledge of any of the incidents occurring at school, and no students have been disciplined.

I have no doubt it will soon be discovered these boys have some sort of mitigating psychological problems or perhaps their fathers beat them with heavy leather straps. And, of course, those girls were just asking for it - what with their breasts and all.

CBS News: Saudi Citizens Funding Iraq InsurgentsHigh-ranking Iraqi officials and the U.S. Iraq Study Group say private citizens in Saudi Arabia are sending large quantities of cash directly to Sunni militants in Iraq, an allegation denied by the Saudi government ?

Free Internet Press: Saudi Arabia Fires Security Consultant For Iraq RemarksSaudi Arabia said Wednesday it had fired a security adviser who wrote in the Washington Post that the world's top oil exporter would intervene in Iraq once the United States withdrew troops. Saudi Arabia's government said last weekend that there was no truth in Nawaf Obaid's Nov. 29 op-ed column, which suggested that the kingdom would back Iraq's Sunni Muslims...

Chicago -- An Illinois man has been arrested by federal agents on charges of planning to set off hand grenades in a shopping mall.

Authorities said the man was arrested Wednesday when he met with an undercover agent in a parking lot to trade a set of stereo speakers for four grenades and a handgun.

Federal officials said that in September, 22-year-old Derrick Shareef became acquainted with an FBI cooperating witness, and confided to him that he wanted to commit acts of "violent jihad" against civilians, as well as other crimes.

Hmmm..."jihad"...where have I heard that word?

He has been charged with one count of attempting to damage or destroy a building by fire or explosion and one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.

An indictment was unsealed in federal court on Friday, alleging the plot on an unnamed shopping mall. The man was scheduled to appear in federal court later Friday.

Remember the opera designed to offend just about everybody, kiddies? (SeeMozart wrote what?) It seems a few of their props are missing...

AFP: Berlin opera's heads of Mohammed, Jesus go missingSevered heads of the Prophet Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus and Poseidon that were to have been used in a hotly disputed staging of a Mozart opera in Berlin this month have vanished, the opera house has said.

The Morning Call: Group sues, seeks to save Gettysburg buildingThe National Park Service wants to demolish a modernistic visitor center on one of the most significant sites of the Gettysburg battlefield, but an architectural preservation group is suing because the building itself is historically important.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in a Washington, D.C., federal court is the latest escalation in a long-standing dispute over the fate of the Cyclorama Center. Built in 1958 by famed modernist architect Richard Neutra, the visitor center is named for the large, circular painting of the famous Civil War battle.Its construction was part of a massive nationwide park modernization plan, and the building is eligible for registration as a national historical landmark.

It was built, however, near one the highest points on Cemetery Ridge, a key defensive position where nearly 1,000 Union soldiers were killed or wounded during Pickett's Charge.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation said in 1999 that the Pennsylvania battlefield's significance trumped that of the building and recommended tearing it down. Park officials plan to open a new museum and visitor center in 2008.

The lawsuit, filed by the Recent Past Preservation Network and Neutra's son, argues the government is violating federal preservation laws. The lawsuit claims the Park Service did not adequately study the effect of the demolition or consider other uses for the building.

The Park Service had no comment Wednesday.

A description of the plans on the service's Web site, however, says the new visitor center will be located alongside the battlefield in a low-lying area that saw no major battle action.

The Cyclorama painting will be moved to the new museum.

Seeing the painting is a must for every visitor to Gettysburg.

The Virginia-based preservation group said in its lawsuit that it does not oppose the plan to restore the battlefield and would not object if the building was moved off the park.

If it is so important and they love it so much, why don't the geniuses from the RPPN pay to have this abomination moved to their headquarters where they can display it with pride? Every Civil War battlefield is too important to be cluttered with monstrosities built to glorify the fetishes of modernist, materialist fools.

Wait'll you get a load (sorry) of their Pez-like dispensers shaped like phalluses!

AP: Drugmaker makes chewable contraceptiveLooking for a contraceptive that's convenient — and tasty? The first chewable birth-control method, a tiny, spearmint-flavored tablet that also can be swallowed without chewing, has hit pharmacy shelves.

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, an unabashed apostle of Reagan era conservatism and the first woman U.S. ambassador to theUnited Nations, has died.

The death of the 80-year-old Kirkpatrick, who began her public life as a Hubert Humphrey Democrat, was announced Friday at the senior staff meeting of the U.S. mission to the United Nations.

Spokesman Richard Grenell said that Ambassador John Bolton asked for a moment of silence. An announcement of her death also was posted on the Web site of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-oriented think tank here where she was a senior fellow.

Kirkpatrick's assistant, Andrea Harrington, said that she died in her sleep at home in Bethesda, Md. late Thursday. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Kirkpatrick's health had been in decline recently, Harrington said, adding that she was "basically confined to her house," going to work about once a week "and then less and less."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said that Kirkpatrick, who had a reputation as a blunt and acerbic advocate, "stood up for the interests of America while at the U.N., lent a powerful moral voice to the Reagan foreign policy and has been a source of wise counsel to our nation since leaving the government two decades ago. She will be greatly missed."

Karlyn H. Bowman, a colleague of Kirkpatrick's at AEI, called her "always insightful. Always interesting. Very thoughtful about modern American politics and foreign policy. A wonderful colleague."

Bowman also said that Kirkpatrick, who had been elevated to the U.N. post by President Reagan in 1981, had "served with great distinction" at the U.N. "She was a great patriot, a champion of freedom and we will certainly miss her at AEI and the country."

Kirkpatrick was known as a blunt and sometimes acerbic advocate for her causes. She remained involved in public issues even though she'd left government service two decades ago. She joined seven other former U.N. ambassadors in 2005 in writing a letter to Congress telling lawmakers that their plan to withhold dues to force reform at the world body was misguided and would "create resentment, build animosity and actually strengthen opponents of reform."

Bill Bennett, a former secretary of education under Reagan, the nation's drug czar under the first President Bush and a leading conservative opinion-maker, called her "very forceful, very strong, a daughter of Oklahoma, great sense of humor. She held her own."

Bennett said the Iraq Study Group so prominently in the news "would have been better with Jeane Kirkpatrick on it ... She had no patience with tyrannies, said they had to be confronted, you couldn't deal with tyrannies, that there were some people you could work with — these people you couldn't." (Thanks toAPfor this obituary.)

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.

Soul of Christ, sanctify me; Body of Christ, save me; Blood of Christ, inebriate me; Water from Christ's side, wash me; Passion of Christ, strengthen me; O good Jesus, hear me; Within Thy wounds hide me; Suffer me not to be separated from Thee; From the malicious enemy defend me; In the hour of my death call me; And bid me come unto Thee; That I may praise Thee with Thy saints and with Thy angels Forever and ever. Amen.

Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Prayer to End Abortion

Lord God, I thank You today for the gift of my life, and for the lives of all my brothers and sisters. I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion, yet I rejoice that you have conquered death by the resurrection of Your Son. I am ready to do my part to end abortion. Today I commit myself never to be silent, never to be passive, and never to be forgetful of the unborn. I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement, and never stop defending life until all my brothers and sisters are protected and our nation once again becomes a nation with liberty and justice, not just for some, but for all. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer For Vocations

Send forth your Spirit, Lord, into the hearts of your faithful people, that we may be conscious of our vocation to holiness and sevice to others. Grant that many of us may dedicate ourselves to You through the priesthood and the religious life.We pray especially for the needs of our own parish and diocese. Grant that we may always have sufficient good and holy priests, and dedicated Sisters to serve our commumities.We pray, too, for religious orders; that generous men may join them to become zealous missionaries in preaching the Gospel in word and action, especially to the poor and abandoned.We make this prayer through Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Redeemer. Amen.

Prayer Before The Crucifix

Behold, O kind and gentle Jesus, I kneel before Thee and pray that Thou would impress upon my heart the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, with true repentance for my sins and a firm purpose of amendment. At the same time, with sorrow I meditate on Thy five precious wounds, having in mind the words which David spoke in prophecy: "They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones."

Divine Praises

Blessed be God.Blessed be His Holy Name.Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.Blessed be the Name of Jesus.Blessed be His most Sacred Heart.Blessed be His most Precious Blood.Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.Blessed be her glorious Assumption.Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.May the Heart of Jesus in the most Blessed SacramentBe praised, adored and lovedWith grateful affection at every momentIn all the tabernacles of the worldEven to the end of time. Amen.

The Chicago Sun-Times'Mark Steyn explores the phenomenon of distaff self-destruction in its many forms.

Quartet of ladies shows where we're headed

Have you seen a movie called ''Four Jills In A Jeep''? Don't worry, it's not at the multiplex. It came out in 1944. A wartime movie, about the contribution of the gals to the big existential struggle. Great title, and downhill after that. This column is, metaphorically speaking, four Jills in a jeep: It's about a quartet of ladies who provide useful glimpses of where we're heading.

The first is Fatma An-Najar, a 64-year-old grandmother who had a livelier Thanksgiving than most grandmas. She marked the occasion by self-detonating in the town of Jebaliya, and, although all she had to show for splattering body parts over the neighborhood were three "lightly wounded" Israeli soldiers, she will have an honored place in the pantheon of Palestinian heroes. She was, according to the official statistician from the Hamas Book Of Records, the oldest Palestinian suicide bomber ever. And, naturally, her family's pleased as punch.

"We are really happy," her son Zuheir told Agence France-Presse. "She told us last night that she would do a suicide operation. She prepared her clothes for that operation, and we are proud. 'I don't want anything, only to die a martyr.' That's what she said."

Awww, bless the sweet l'il ol' biddy. She wouldn't have wanted to die a long lingering death in some old folks' home. This is the way she wanted to go: quick and painless, except for any Zionists in the immediate vicinity.

An-Najar gave birth to her first child at the age of 12. She had eight others. She had 41 grandchildren. Keep that family tree in mind. By contrast, in Spain, a 64-year old woman will have maybe one grandchild. That's four grandparents, one grandchild: a family tree with no branches.

Which brings me to our second Jill: the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to run a national division of the Anglican Communion. Bishop Kate gave an interview to the New York Times revealing what passes for orthodoxy in this most flexible of faiths. She was asked a simple enough question: "How many members of the Episcopal Church are there?"

"About 2.2 million," replied the presiding bishop. "It used to be larger percentage-wise, but Episcopalians tend to be better educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than other denominations."

This was a bit of a jaw-dropper even for a New York Times hackette, so, with vague memories of God saying something about going forth and multiplying floating around the back of her head, a bewildered Deborah Solomon said: "Episcopalians aren't interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?"

"No," agreed Bishop Kate. "It's probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion."

May God have mercy on all souls.

Now, that may or may not be a great idea, but it's nothing to do with Christianity, only for eco-cultists like Al Gore. If Bishop Kate were an Episcogorian, a member of the Alglican Communion, an elder of the Church of Latter-Day Chads, this would be an unremarkable statement. But, even in their vigorous embrace of gay bishoprics and all the rest, I don't recall the Episcopalians formally embracing the strategy that worked out so swell for the Shakers and enshrining a disapproval of reproduction at the heart of their doctrine.

Which brings me to our third Jill in the jeep: Scarlett Johansson. Like every other sad middle-aged loser guy, I fell in love with Scarlett's fetchingly pert bottom in the opening of ''Lost In Translation,'' and it pains me to discover she's no different from Bishop Kate's generation when it comes to being in thrall to the cobwebbed pieties of the 1960s. In a bit of light Bush-bashing the other day, she attacked the president for his opposition to "sex education." If he had his way, she said, "every woman would have six children and we wouldn't be able to have abortions." Whereas Scarlett is so "socially aware" (as she puts it) she gets tested for HIV twice a year.

I would like to say I am surprised, but I am not. Again, it is not surprising that thinking people don't pay attention to what Hollyweirdos "think".

Well, yes. If "sex education" is about knowing which concrete condom is less likely to disintegrate during the livelier forms of penetrative intercourse, then getting an AIDS test every few months may well be a sign that you're a Ph.D. (Doctor of Phenomenal horniness). But, if "sex education" means an understanding of sexuality as anything other than an act of transient self-expression, then Scarlett is talking through that famously cute butt.

Here's the question for Bishop Kate: If Fatma An-Najar has 41 grandchildren and a responsible "better educated" Episcopalian has one or two, into whose hands are we delivering "the stewardship of the earth"? If your crowd isn't around in any numbers, how much influence can they have in shaping the future?

Well, the Episcopal head honcho and even Scarlett Johansson are not the most powerful figures in the world, so let's usher on our fourth Jill: Condoleezza Rice.

"The great majority of Palestinian people," said the secretary of state to Cal Thomas the other day, "they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do."

Cal Thomas asked a sharp follow-up: "Do you think this or do you know this?"

"Well, I think I know it," said Dr. Rice.

"You think you know it?"

"I think I know it."

Wow. Condi has no more of a clue than Scarlett.

So many of our present woes are due to thinking we know things. To our four Jills in the jeep, let's add one Jim, apparently back at the steering wheel in the current war: James Baker, renowned foreign policy "realist" and the man Beltway wags are currently referring to as "the acting secretary of state." The "realists" think that "containment" and "stability" are wise strategies. In fact, they're the absence of strategy. The fertility rate in the Gaza Strip is one of the highest on earth. If you measure the births of the Muslim world against the dearth of Bishop Kate's Episcopalians, you have the perfect snapshot of why there is no "stability": With every passing month, there are more Muslims and fewer Episcopalians, and the Muslims export their manpower to Europe and other depopulating outposts of the West. It's the intersection of demography and Islamism that makes time a luxury we can't afford.

We can argue about exactly what this trend means, but not that it means nothing. At the very minimum, I'd suggest, it means the Episcopal Church is irrelevant to "the stewardship of the earth" and that Scarlett Johansson will end her days on an earth whose stewards regard being tested for HIV twice as a sign of many things, but not, on the whole, "social awareness."

To: The OthersRE:ItEvery once in a while, Your Humble Servant feels compelled to disabuse some visitors of the misconceptions and prejudices festering in their heads.1) This is a place for me to put my stuff.2) I do not want fans. I would like to have readers.3) All of you good little kiddies who get it may disregard the balance of this memo and proceed to the next post. As for the rest of you...4) Congratulations. You found someone (on the Internet, of all places!) with whom you disagree. How novel. How clever of you.My guess is you haven't been paying attention since puberty set in.5) No matter how much you wish things were different, nothing here is about you. Nothing here is for you. This is my little idiot corner of Bloggerdom - of me, by me, and for me.That being said, I do hope you find it interesting, edifying, and occasionally amusing. If not, go away. I will not lose any sleep over it and neither should you.6) Your opinion of my opinions interests me not at all. Opinions are like...toes: Everybody has nearly a dozen of them and some people's are webbed.7) Your opinion of my methods, madness, tactics, stratagems, peccadillos, idiosyncrasies, foibles, intellectual bona fides, vocabulary, morality, immorality, politics, character, cheesesteaks, and cheesesteaks, taste in women, religious beliefs, et cetera, interests me even less.8) The bottom line? I do not care what you think. (Yes, you. That's right, even you. Yep, you guessed it, even you.)The fact that you seem to care about what I think amuses me for about three seconds every time you remind me of it.9) Here is a little magic trick for you. Simply ignore me and I will not vex you any longer. I wish I could do that to you, but I must regularly purge my mailbox of your clutter or else I might miss some of those wonderful unsolicited money-making opportunities.10) You do not understand because you do not want to understand. You do not get it because you think you know.By the grace of Almighty God, your ignorance is not invincible. But it is willful. 11) I will regularly re-post this memo for even the most obstinate and slow-witted of the beasts may be taught by repetition.

1) The guys who set the lines are professionals. Their job is to make each game look as attractive as possible to everyone. That way they even out the amount of money bet on each side.Instant translation: The house wins no matter who wins. That's why people get into the gambling business.2) I am just a fan. I won't even keep track of these picks week to week if it gets too embarrassing.3) There is no such thing as "inside information". Especially in the pros.4) If those idiot touts on tv and in the paper were any good, they wouldn't go public with their genius. They'd sit at Harrah's sports book from open to close and then go out and buy$2,000 an hour hookers who dress like high school girls.5) Gambling is stupid. You cannot win. That being said, here are my NFL picks for this week.

Thursday 12/6

Cleveland (+7.5) at PittsburghThe Steelers continue to screw up next year's draft position by winning again. But they don't cover. Take the Browns and the points.FINAL: Steelers 27 Browns 7 - Fyodor loses! (For a couple of hours it seemed like last season...)

Sunday 12/10

Atlanta (-3) at Tampa BayAnother UP week for the man with the expressive fingers. Take Atlanta on the road.FINAL: Falcons 17 Buccaneers 6 - Fyodor wins! (Opposite, schmopposite!)

The man with the Amazing Growing Head, cap in hand, begs some fools to give him way too much money.

News Channel 5 Cleveland: Barry Bonds Shows Up At Owner MeetingsLake Buena Vista - There were no "slugger wanted" signs hanging at the baseball owners meetings in Florida, but that didn't stop Barry Bonds from acting as though there were.

Iran's Foreign Ministry will hold a conference next week at which scholars from 30 countries will discuss the scale of the Holocaust -- dismissed as a myth by President Hungadunga-- and whether the Nazis really used gas chambers to kill Jews.

Quick, ladies! Kill your kids before they make you go nuts and...well...kill somebody!

Kansas City Star: Having babies makes women go insane! study findsNew moms face increased risks for a variety of mental problems, not just postpartum depression, according to one of the largest studies of psychiatric illness after childbirth.

New dads aren’t as vulnerable, probably because they don’t experience the same physical and social changes associated with having a baby, the researchers and other experts said.

Penis bad, Vagina vulnerable.

The study, based on medical records of 2.3 million people over a 30-year period in Denmark, found that the first three months after women have their first baby is riskiest, especially the first few weeks. That’s when the tremendous responsibility of caring for a newborn hits home.

During the first 10 to 19 days, new mothers were seven times more likely to be hospitalized with some form of mental illness than women with older infants. Compared with women with no children, new mothers were four times more likely to be hospitalized with mental problems. New mothers also were more likely than other women to get outpatient psychiatric treatment.

However, new fathers did not have a higher risk of mental problems when compared with fathers of older infants and men without children.

Ditto.

The prevalence of mental disorders was about 1 per 1,000 births for women and just .37 per 1,000 births for men.

Mental problems included postpartum depression, but also bipolar disorder, with altering periods of depression and mania; schizophrenia and similar disorders; and adjustment disorders, which can include debilitating anxiety.

The study underscores a need for psychiatric screening of all new mothers and treatment for those affected, said an editorial accompanying the study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Two of the editorial’s three authors reported financial ties to the psychiatric drug industry. The study researchers said they had no financial ties to the industry.

Hmmm...Big Pharma too...

The lead author, Trine Munk-Olsen, a researcher at Denmark’s University of Aarhus, said that similar risks for psychiatric problems probably would affect new parents in other developed nations, including the United States. However, differences in screening practices and access to health care might influence whether parents elsewhere are hospitalized, she said.

Hard data on the number of women worldwide affected by postpartum mental illness are scant, but postpartum depression alone affects about 15 percent of U.S. women.

The Olympian:VP Cheney's lesbian daughter is pregnantDick Cheney's next grandchild will have two mommies. The White House says Cheney's openly gay daughter and political adviser, Mary, is expecting a baby this spring with her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe.

I do not want you kiddies to think Senatrix Hitlery Schicklgruber (N-NY) is going to lay down and meekly let the AmericaLast media's latest darling, Senator Token, steal the Democrass nomination in 2008. She honestly believes being the Empress of AmeriKKKa is her rightful inheritance.Tony Blankley (at Jewish World Review) has a few words of warning for Citizen Barack Hussein Obama in case he decides to cross the Psycho Cow of Chappaqua...

After two grueling years legislating in the Senate, this man, whose seasoned judgment the world will be relying on for its very survival, assesses that this is the optimum moment for him to lead the world. Everything he has done and thought in the last several months has prepared him for this moment. He is now at the peak of his experience and sagacity.

Apparently his strategy for victory is to rely on his undoubted open-faced good looks and his high natural intelligence. Men have certainly been elected with less. (e.g. Warren Harding). They have also been elected with more (e.g. about 35 of the other 42 presidents).

Presumably he believes that his life is an open book (if a short one). For his sake, I hope it is. But even if he has lived a blameless life (as I presume he has), in the coming months his opponents will be busy scribbling in their own addendums. One opponent in particular is surrounded by a team of operatives who, over long and successful careers, have mastered the art of drawing mustaches on their opponents.

If Hillary Milhous (Heehee! I'll bet she does not like that one at all! - F.G.) Clinton begins to believe that Sen. Obama is a threat to her inheritance of the White House — it will not be long before his own mother will not recognize the public image that Hillary's operatives will have drawn of him. He could ask Paula Jones (and all the other innocent women "her husband" attempted to seduce and abandon), or Ken Starr (one of the nation's most admired jurists before he was assigned to investigate "her husband."

Or consider my old boss Newt Gingrich — Clinton's primary political opponent in the 1990s. Clinton's IRS very publicly opened an investigation of Newt for tax fraud. They kept it open for years, and then, a few weeks after he retired, the IRS quietly announced the investigation was complete and he was innocent. But not before Democrats spent years using that phony investigation as a basis for calling Newt a tax cheat. That's the way the Clintons play the game. They call it the policy of personal destruction. For Obama's sake, I hope he is ready for the game he is so anxious to get into.

At the other end of the field, the left-wing activist base is already questioning his lack of convictions. In The Huffington Post earlier this week, Nation magazine's David Sirota wrote an article entitled "The Ridiculousness and Danger that is Obama '08": " ... [H]e doesn't actually seem to aspire to anything outside of the Washington power structure ... and doesn't seem to be interested in challenging the status quo in any fundamental way ... Obama is a candidate who has kept his record deliberately thin, who has risked almost nothing for the bigger movement, and ... has gone out of his way to reinforce dishonest stereotypes about the left ... " And those were some of the kinder statements that can be found on the aroused left.

But I'll say this for Sen. Obama. If, over the next 25 months, the young paladin can fend off Hillary's bad boys, Arianna's crazy boys and the GOP's back room boys, he may in fact be ready for the big game against Bin Laden's murderous boys.

On Dec. 7, 1941 - 65 years ago this week - pilots from a Japanese carrier force bombed Pearl Harbor. They killed 2,403 Americans, most of them service personnel, while destroying much of the American fleet and air forces stationed in Hawaii.

The next morning, an outraged United States declared war, which ended less than four years later with the destruction of most of the Japanese empire and its military.

Sixty years after Pearl Harbor came another surprise attack on U.S. soil, one that was, in some ways, even worse than the "Day of Infamy."

Nearly 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks - the vast majority of them civilians. Al-Qaida's target was not an American military base far distant from the mainland. Rather, they suicide-bombed the United States' financial and military centers.

It's been five years since Sept. 11. After such a terrible provocation, why can't we bring the ongoing "global war on terror" - whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere - to a close as our forefathers fighting World War II could?

Is our generation less competent?

Not really. The United States routed the Taliban from Afghanistan by early December 2001. America's first clear-cut victory against the Japanese, at Midway, came six months after Pearl Harbor.

Do we lack the unity of the past?

Perhaps. But we should at least remember that after Pearl Harbor, a national furor immediately arose over the intelligence failure that had allowed an enormous Japanese fleet to approach the Hawaiian Islands undetected. Extremists went further - clamoring that the Roosevelt administration had deliberately lowered our guard as part of a conspiracy to pave the way for America's entrance into the war.

Are we in over our heads fighting in both Afghanistan and Iraq?

Hardly. Within days after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. found itself in a three-front war against Germany, Italy and Japan - an Axis that had won a series of recent battles against the British, Chinese and Russians.

But there are significant differences between the "global war on terror" and World War II that do explain why victory is taking so much longer this time.

The most obvious is that, against Japan and Germany, we faced easily identifiable nation states with conventional militaries.Today's terrorists blend in with civilians, and it's hard to tie them to their patron governments or enablers in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Pakistan, who all deny any culpability. We also tread carefully in an age of ubiquitous frightening weapons, when any war at any time might without much warning bring in a nuclear, non-democratic belligerent.

The limitations on our war-making are just as often self-imposed. Yes, we defeated the Axis powers in less than four years, but it was at a ghastly cost. To defeat both Japan and Germany, we averaged over 8,000 Americans lost every month of the war - compared to around 50 per month since Sept. 11.

So far the United States has encouraged its citizens to shop rather than sacrifice. The subtext is that we can defeat the terrorists and their autocratic sponsors with just a fraction of our available manpower - ensuring no real disruption in our lifestyles. That certainly wasn't the case with the Depression-era generation who fought World War II.

And in those days, peace and reconstruction followed rather than preceded victory. In tough-minded fashion, we offered ample aid to, and imposed democracy on, war-torn nations only after the enemy was utterly defeated and humiliated. Today, to avoid such carnage, we try to help and reform countries before our enemies have been vanquished -putting the cart of aid before the horse of victory.

Our efforts today are further complicated by conflicting Internet fatwas, terrorist militias and shifting tribal alliances; in short, we are not always sure who the enemy cadre really is - or will be.

So paradoxes follow:

A stronger, far more affluent United States believes it can use less of its power against the terrorists than a much poorer America did against the formidable Japanese and Germans.

World War II, which saw more than 400,000 Americans killed, was not nearly as controversial or frustrating as one that has so far taken less than one-hundredth of that terrible toll.

And after Pearl Harbor, Americans believed they had no margin of error in an elemental war for survival. Today, we are apparently convinced that we can lose ground, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, and still not lose either the war or our civilization.

Bingo! That is exactly the attitude the American establishment has adopted since the end of World War II. It is the slow suicide of the fat and lazy coward.Give Mr. Hanson a cigar.

Of course, by 1945, Americans no longer feared another Pearl Harbor. Yet, we, in a far stronger and larger United States, are still not sure we won't see another Sept. 11.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War."

The Old Gray Whore: Former Aide Parts With Carter Over BookAtlanta — An adviser to former President Jimmy Carter and onetime executive director of the Carter Center has publicly parted ways with his former boss, citing concerns with the accuracy and integrity of Mr. Carter’s latest book, “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.”

The adviser, Kenneth W. Stein, a professor of Middle Eastern history and political science at Emory University, resigned his position as a fellow with the Carter Center on Tuesday, ending a 23-year association with the institution.

In a two-page letter explaining his action, Mr. Stein called the book “replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions and simply invented segments.” Mr. Stein said he had used similar language in a private letter he sent to Mr. Carter, but received no reply.

Stratford, N.J. - In an age of multimillion-dollar high-tech weapons systems, sometimes it's the simplest ideas that can save lives. Which is why a New Jersey mother is organizing a drive to send cans of Silly String to Iraq.

American troops use the stuff to detect trip wires around bombs, as Marcelle Shriver learned from her son, a soldier in Iraq.

Before entering a building, troops squirt the plastic goo, which can shoot strands about 10 to 12 feet, across the room. If it falls to the ground, no trip wires. If it hangs in the air, they know they have a problem. The wires are otherwise nearly invisible.

Now, 1,000 cans of the neon-colored plastic goop are packed into Shriver's one-car garage in this town outside Philadelphia, ready to be shipped to the Middle East thanks to two churches and a pilot who heard about the drive.

"If I turn on the TV and see a soldier with a can of this on his vest, that would make this all worth it," said Shriver, 57, an office manager.

The maker of the Silly String brand, Just for Kicks Inc. of Watertown, N.Y., has contacted the Shrivers about donating some. Other manufacturers make the stuff, too, and call their products "party string" or "crazy string."

"Everyone in the entire corporation is very pleased that we can be involved in something like this," said Rob Oram, Just for Kicks product marketing manager. He called the troops' use of Silly String innovative.

The military is reluctant to talk about the use of Silly String, saying that discussing specific tactics will tip off insurgents.

But Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said Army soldiers and Marines are not forbidden to come up with new ways to do their jobs, especially in Iraq's ever-evolving battlefield. And he said commanders are given money to buy nonstandard supplies as needed.

In other cases of battlefield improvisation in Iraq, U.S. soldiers have bolted scrap metal to Humvees in what has come to be known as "Hillybilly Armor." Medics use tampons to plug bullet holes in the wounded until they can be patched up.

Also, soldiers put condoms and rubber bands around their rifle muzzles to keep out sand. (That one's been around a while. - F.G.) And troops have welded old bulletproof windshields to the tops of Humvees to give gunners extra protection. They have dubbed it "Pope's glass" — a reference to the barriers that protect the pontiff.

In an October call to his mother, Army Spc. Todd Shriver explained how his unit in the insurgent hotbed of Ramadi learned from Marines to use Silly String on patrol to detect boobytraps.

After sending some cans to her 28-year-old son, Shriver enlisted the help of two priests and posted notices in her church and its newsletter. From there, the effort took off, with money and Silly String flowing in. Parishioners have been dropping cans into donation baskets.

"There's so much that they can't do, and they're frustrated, but this is something they can do," said the Rev. Joseph Capella of St. Luke's Church in Stratford.

Amen to that, Father.

The Shrivers said they would not mind seeing the string as standard-issue equipment, but they don't blame the military for not supplying it.

"I don't think that they can think of everything," said Ronald Shriver, 59, a retired salesman. "They're taught to improvise, and this is something that they've thought of."

Marcelle Shriver said that since the string comes in an aerosol can, it is considered a hazardous material, meaning the Postal Service will not ship it by air. But a private pilot who heard about her campaign has agreed to fly the cans to Kuwait — most likely in January — where they will then be taken to Iraq.

Shriver said she will continue her campaign as long as her son is overseas and she has Silly String to send.

"I know that he's going come through this. I hope they all do," she said.

A Roman noble, Ambrose was the brother of Saint Marcellina and Saint Satyrus. Educated in the classics, Greek, and philosophy at Rome, he was also a poet and noted orator. Before his conversion, he served as Governor of Milan.

When the bishop of Milan died, a dispute over his replacement was leading to violence. Ambrose intervened to calm both sides; he impressed everyone involved so much that while he was still an unbaptized catechuman, he was chosen to fill the see. He resisted, claiming that he was not worthy, but to prevent further violence, he assented, and on 7 December 374 he was baptized, ordained as a priest, and consecrated as bishop. He immediately gave away his wealth to the Church and the poor both for the good it did, and as an example to his flock.

As a preacher, teacher, bible student of renown, and writer of liturgical hymns, he stood firm against pagans and Arians. His preaching helped convert Saint Augustine of Hippo, whom Ambrose baptized and brought into the Church. Ambrose's preaching brought Emporer Theodosius to do public penance for his sins.

He called and chaired several theological councils during his time as bishop, many devoted to fighting heresy. Welcomed Saint Ursus and Saint Alban of Mainz when they fled Naxos to escape Arian persecution, and then sent them on to evangelize in Gaul and Germany. Proclaimed a great Doctor of the Latin Church by Pope Boniface VIII in 1298.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.

Soul of Christ, sanctify me; Body of Christ, save me; Blood of Christ, inebriate me; Water from Christ's side, wash me; Passion of Christ, strengthen me; O good Jesus, hear me; Within Thy wounds hide me; Suffer me not to be separated from Thee; From the malicious enemy defend me; In the hour of my death call me; And bid me come unto Thee; That I may praise Thee with Thy saints and with Thy angels Forever and ever. Amen.

Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Prayer to End Abortion

Lord God, I thank You today for the gift of my life, and for the lives of all my brothers and sisters. I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion, yet I rejoice that you have conquered death by the resurrection of Your Son. I am ready to do my part to end abortion. Today I commit myself never to be silent, never to be passive, and never to be forgetful of the unborn. I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement, and never stop defending life until all my brothers and sisters are protected and our nation once again becomes a nation with liberty and justice, not just for some, but for all. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer For Vocations

Send forth your Spirit, Lord, into the hearts of your faithful people, that we may be conscious of our vocation to holiness and sevice to others. Grant that many of us may dedicate ourselves to You through the priesthood and the religious life.We pray especially for the needs of our own parish and diocese. Grant that we may always have sufficient good and holy priests, and dedicated Sisters to serve our commumities.We pray, too, for religious orders; that generous men may join them to become zealous missionaries in preaching the Gospel in word and action, especially to the poor and abandoned.We make this prayer through Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Redeemer. Amen.

Prayer Before The Crucifix

Behold, O kind and gentle Jesus, I kneel before Thee and pray that Thou would impress upon my heart the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, with true repentance for my sins and a firm purpose of amendment. At the same time, with sorrow I meditate on Thy five precious wounds, having in mind the words which David spoke in prophecy: "They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones."

Divine Praises

Blessed be God. Blessed be His Holy Name.Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.Blessed be the Name of Jesus.Blessed be His most Sacred Heart.Blessed be His most Precious Blood.Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.Blessed be her glorious Assumption.Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.May the Heart of Jesus in the most Blessed SacramentBe praised, adored and lovedWith grateful affection at every momentIn all the tabernacles of the worldEven to the end of time. Amen.

Sorry to disappoint you, kiddies, but they don't spend their time reading anddiscussing The Consolation of Philosophyand the like. (That is a favorite fantasy of mine...me, Boethius, a nice Chianti, and the Olsen twins.)

Some of Hollywood's most successful women share an unexpected byproduct of success -- hairy armpits.

And the Hollyweirdos wonder why nobody takes them seriously.

That was one of the lighter messages brought home on Tuesday at a star-studded breakfast, hosted by the Hollywood Reporter in conjunction with the publication of its 15th annual Women In Entertainment Power 100 list.

"It's a miracle I'm here," said keynote speaker Maria Bello, star of "World Trade Center," in describing her hectic morning as a multi-tasking mom during which she finally got around to "shaving two-week old growth" under her arms.

Eek!

"I still have two-week old growth," quipped fellow "World Trade Center" star Maggie Gyllenhaal, another keynote speaker who, like Bello, earned accolades for her role in the Oliver Stone-directed drama about the September 11 attacks.

Don't they have illegal immigrants or Frenchmen to take care of that stuff for them?

City officials ordered CBS Outdoor, the company that holds the advertising contract for its bus shelters, to remove the adhesive strips Tuesday, just one day after they were put up as part of a "Got Milk?" campaign.

Scented oils were sandwiched between cardboard cards emblazoned with "Got Milk?" and affixed to shelter walls, in hopes that the smell of just-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies would spark cravings for milk. The promotion was launched at five San Francisco bus shelters at a cost of about $30 per shelter.

Remember the good old days when sniffing a bus shelter got you arrested as some kind of pervert?

Johnson has claimed he drank beer with a former U.S. football player in the drug test waiting room at Seoul, that the footballer was "a family friend" of Carl Lewis and that his beer had been tainted with stanozolol.

"I've been speaking to my lawyer and he wants to keep it as low (key) as possible until next June. We're trying to get some information, try to get that guy (the footballer) to speak," Johnson told the Herald Sun.

Due to time constraints, we now move to further action.

Johnson's disqualification in Seoul led to Lewis being awarded the gold medal and the world record for his time of 9.92 seconds.

Johnson made similar conspiracy allegations in an interview with an Australian television network in October. He admitted he had been a long-time user of performance-enhancing drugs but said stanozolol was not one of the drugs he had been using.

"Number one, that day the drugs that they find in my system was not the drugs that I was using," he said.

"Number two, Ben Johnson was sabotaged in Seoul. Somebody set me up.

"I'm not denying at all that I was taking drugs but that's the drugs that I was using that they claiming.

"Drugs was in sports long before Ben Johnson came on board and drugs will be there long after Ben Johnson is gone."

Roto-Reuters: New York rejects transgender birth certificate law New York City's health department on Tuesday rejected a proposal that would have allowed transgender people to switch the gender on their birth certificates without a sex-change operation.

Advocates who had been praising the proposal as ground-breaking for the rights of transgender people called it a frustrating setback when officials rescinded the proposal just before it was due for a vote by the board of health.

Had it passed, people who live in the gender opposite their genitalia would have been able to acquire a new birth certificate if they had the backing of doctors and mental health professionals.

The health department cited "broader societal ramifications" for killing the proposal, noting that hospitals, schools and jails still must classify people by gender.

"For example, how can you send a person with a penis to a women's prison?" said one health department official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the department.

What is surprising to me is that someone in New York has enough sense (and cajones[sorry]) to ask a question like that.He must live in Jersey.

New York City's health department, which keeps birth and death records, had made the proposal in recognition that many transgender people cannot afford sex reassignment surgery or do not consider it necessary to live in their acquired gender.

"Acquired"? How so?

Some transgender people get by just on hormone treatments and others cannot have the operation for health reasons, all while still living in the gender that does not correspond to their anatomy.

The transgender rights movement has grown in recent years to protect a small minority whose members tend to be poorer and more susceptible to violence than society at large, advocates say.

The city did alter one aspect of the law to permit transgender people who have had gender reassignment surgery to get a new birth certificate noting their new gender.

Until now, those birth certificates have not identified either gender.

Bigot! How dare you limit the number of possible "genders"? The googleplexicalsexuals will feel slighted.

"We are disappointed but we are not going to take defeat and walk away. We are going to try again and get an even better law the next time around," said Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund.

"It feels like it was a missed opportunity to do the right thing," he said.

The Nigger of the Narcissus, his third novel, describes a homeward voyage from India rounding The Cape in winter, with the ship Narcissus getting knocked down on her beam ends. It is also a story of troubled inter-personal relationships, an exploration of compulsion, obsession and neurosis - most of the characters can be seen as either weirdly hysterical or Hollywood-heroic. And it is a heavy exploration of Conrad's gloomy Slavic soul. Even in a ship romping across tropical seas before a favourable monsoon Conrad sees dark despair and regret: “like the earth that had given her up to the sea, she [the ship] had an intolerable load of hopes and regrets”. - Nick Burningham

If you would rather not buy the book, you may read itherefor free, courtesy of the University of Virginia.

Los Angeles - Andy Dick is apologizing for using the same racial slur that got ex-"Seinfeld" star Michael Richards in trouble last month.

Dick, a former co-star of the 1990s sitcom "NewsRadio," jumped on stage during a routine by Ian Bagg at L.A.'s Improv on Saturday night and used the n-word in an apparent attempt to joke about Richards, the celebrity Web site TMZ.com reported Tuesday.

Dick issued an apology through his publicist.

"I chose to make a joke about a subject that is not funny," said the statement, which was provided to the Los Angeles Times. "In an attempt to make light of a serious subject, I have offended a lot of people, and I am sorry for my insensitivity. I wish to apologize to Ian, to the club and its patrons and to anyone who was hurt or offended by my remark."

I have heard Andy Dick speak. Let me assure you that statement was written by the publicist.

According to TMZ, Dick had been heckling comedian Bagg from the audience and then joined him onstage, when the two discussed Richards. When Dick exited the stage, he suddenly grabbed the microphone and shouted at the crowd, "You're all a bunch of...'" — using the n-word.

Narcissist. Nobody in LA likes to be called a narcissist.

An Improv manager wouldn't comment about the incident when reached by the newspaper.

What qualifications does one need to get a job as a comedy club manager?

Yeah, I don't know what most of that means, either, and I saw the stuff when they taped the show last month at the Kodak Theatre. Suffice it to say that the garments were generally not large enough to fit their printed descriptions upon them.

And the "flotation shrug"? That was a mini version of the flotation device under your airplane seat, which one wagers that few people associate with erotic lingerie.

There was also one model with a large silver inflatable clamshell-looking thingee on her back. It should be a big hit with prostitutes.

The Victoria's Secret models - all dubbed "Angels" - strode up and down the catwalk bearing myriad designs of giant, flowing wings (one even took flight over the audience).

The day of the CBS taping was quite the circus. In the morning at the nearby Renaissance Hotel, a backstage hair-and-makeup photo-op found the models, in silk fuchsia robes, being gang-primped and plucked by beauty-industry professionals before mirrors that read VERY SEXY. Light bulbs spelled out VERY SEXY in words 15 feet high in one corner of the ballroom. (It was bested by the 50-foot-tall light bank in the theater reading SEXY.) Tickets for the event had the word SEXY on them more than 70 times.

If you have to beat people over the head with a word, that word is probably inappropriate or misleading.

And yet, I'm having a hard time coming up with a way to describe the event.

"Entertainment Tonight's" Kevin Frazier said to one model, "I've got to ask you a very serious question real quick." Alas, the push of the masses thrust me out of earshot for what no doubt was a think-tank-level dissertation on Darfur.

Heehee.

Fun fact: Across the hall from the cattle call of lechery was a display by the National Association of Episcopal Schools.

Ouch. (Heehee. Episcopalians.)

The fashion show was attended, inevitably, by Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. Justin Timberlake performed his single "SexyBack."

I am being totally serious here. What is he famous for? Wasn't he married to some hot babe or something? I AM NOT JOKING! Not remembering who he is (or was) is really bothering me.

There was a fairly creepy collection, "Pink," in which the models' outfits made them look even younger than they already were; it's apparel appealing to those that "Dateline NBC" tracks down in its "To Catch a Predator" sequences.

Heehee.

Pink: It's not just a color anymore.

To make amends, the show - which lasted barely 40 minutes - ended with a choir warbling that "we'll live in harmony" before, of course, shaking itself of such idealism and returning to Timberlake's less-spiritual beseeching: "Put your sexy on." (Thanks to theCharlotte Observerfor the heads up.)

About Me

First of all, the word is SEX, not GENDER. If you are ever tempted to use the word GENDER, don't. The word is SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! For example: "My sex is male." is correct.
"My gender is male." means nothing. Look it up.
What kind of sick neo-Puritan nonsense is this? Idiot left-fascists, get your blood-soaked paws off the English language. Hence I am choosing "male" under protest.